


necessary forms of thought

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:21:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Keats was wise,” replies Combeferre, in kindness. “But let us not forget that Coleridge was wiser still to say, the most general definition of beauty is multeity in unity.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	necessary forms of thought

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise again for the pseudo-Hugoesque prose.

“Must you work on such an evening?”

Jehan’s voice is soft as the wind that drifts from the open window. He wears only a thin shirt and trousers from Combeferre’s drawers, his palms rest upon the sill, and he gazes upon something far in the distance; a star, perhaps, or else upon Venus’ light. It is a clear night, and Combeferre’s lodgings afford a good view.

At his desk Combeferre lays down his quill and studies carefully the page of an open volume -- _A Continuation of Facts and Observations relative to the Variolæ Vaccinæ_. It is only after this perusal that he offers a response.

“Surely it is logical that I might work. We have time enough, I am capable, and Enjolras has assigned me no task. You gaze upon your night. Logic dictates my working.”

Jehan turns. The moon in its fullness casts his face into shadow, hides from Combeferre the smile of his lips. “What good is logic in a world that seems so often without?”

He would return to his stars were it not for Combeferre’s dismissal of Jenner – that is to say, the closing of his book – and the scrape of his chair on the floor as it is pushed below his desk. Silently Combeferre walks to his loveseat and sits. “Come,” he says, simply, and so Jehan does.

They sit together, and Combeferre brushes a lock of Jehan’s hair behind his ear before he speaks again. “Do not be so quick to dismiss logic, my love. After all, when you write your poetry there is logic at work.” Jehan opens his mouth as if to protest, but Combeferre silences him with a placating hand. “No, no, dear Jehan --- you may not realise it but it is true. Nothing is without formula. Your words are written to affect and to praise, but foremost to explain. Do I not do the same in my calculations or my experiments? Do I not too explain?

Might not an equation allow me to explain an answer that may form the basis of architecture? Might not some calculated experimentation explain why we Parisians are blighted by such disease? Why, only the other day a friend of mine attended class complaining of some sickness, and the very next day was gone – we must be grateful it was not dear Joly! Yet I digress. Might not your words allow you to explain your heart and your ideals, your very soul? Indeed, might not your words explain why we Parisians are blighted by such disease – that disease being in this case not cholera, but love!

And so I repeat: do we not both explain?”

“We do,” says Jehan, softly. He rests a hand upon Combeferre’s cheek briefly. “How delightfully you express yourself. Perhaps we shall make a poet of you yet.”

It is not spoken mockingly or with contempt. No, it is sincere and gentle and most awed, for it is Jehan.

“And you understand,” murmurs Combeferre, and he by now is sitting close enough that their knees brush. His eyes are alight. “That Viète is my Fontaine, Descartes my Chénier. Beauty is not only to be found in words, my darling.”

“Of course,” breathes Jehan, in fragile voice. A faint blush is to be seen upon his cheeks. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

“Keats was wise,” replies Combeferre, in kindness. “But let us not forget that Coleridge was wiser still to say, the most general definition of beauty is multeity in unity.”

“I fear we may never agree on beauty, except that Enjolras possesses it,” Jehan says, and such witticism is enough to elicit a smile from Combeferre. “But we might demonstrate your last principle in more comfortable quarters.”

 

Prouvaire is correct.

In the warmth of Combeferre’s sheets, with flames licking the fireplace in the corner, _the quality of being many_ has never better been illustrated.

At the first tender kiss upon his mouth Jehan smiles, eyes fluttering shut to expose the paleness of his eyelids. Quite spontaneously Combeferre places two kisses next upon the delicate skin there, and then to the similarly blue skin of his wrist. Were he examining he might comment on the paleness of the skin and the slenderness of his arms, and so he does, but thinks of it not in a medical context.

“Kiss me again,” whispers Jehan, who has not yet opened his eyes.

His mouth is granted another, but although it is tender it has lost its innocence; Combeferre strokes fingers through Jehan’s hair and presses his tongue past the yield of Jehan’s lips. Jehan is a willing subject, keening softly. How soft the sound is!

They kiss for many more moments. No more is required, for now at least; each is content merely with the touch of the other’s lips. Anymore might be excessive, at least for now.

But soon it is no longer enough. Neither could say who moves first, but were they to guess Jehan may be likely, for it is he that moans first. It is not a moan that might be heard from Courfeyrac’s bed late at night, but rather a slow, pleased moan.

“Did logic not compel you to dress in my clothes?” Combeferre asks quite breathlessly, in between kisses. His fingers loosen the waist of Jehan’s trousers. "When you entered my rooms, rendered sodden by the rain, was it not logic that dictated you might borrow some garments? Did you not pick the trousers most fitting to your form, and a shirt suited to the temperature of my quarters?"

“Beauty, rather,” comes the reply; and with it a shiver, for Combeferre’s warm hand has dipped to the hollow of Jehan’s hip to stroke there. “You wore such an ensemble to the Musain one day and I thought you quite beautiful, and that I should like such beauty.”

Neither speaks again, for Combeferre has begun to stroke Jehan with light hand and practised wrist, each movement slow but deliberate. Neither has undressed but it is not necessary for their lovemaking, which is as much intimate with one touch and bare skin as it is with whispered words exchanged in the darkness.

Jehan is hard in his palm, and a hand clutches at Combeferre’s forearms. The nails will perhaps leave red crescents in their wake, reddened moons, but Combeferre finds that he cares not. In fact, he might treasure them as he does any other signature Jehan leaves upon his body: a stanza inked upon his hand or a bruise mouthed to his neck, a scratch upon his back (for Jehan is not violent but may be overwhelmed by pleasure should Combeferre enter him, and will run hands usually so delicate upon his skin as he twists and screams and his body is wracked by shudders, and once he has been released from the throes of such ecstasy will see his inadvertent handiwork and apologise most profusely) or the ghost of a kiss upon his lips.

“For me, Jehan,” whispers Combeferre now, for again the other has begun to shake beneath him and he can sense that he is nearing.

When Jehan arches beneath his gentle touch, it is with gasps and with stuttered breaths. Combeferre holds him throughout, lets him spill his release over his fingers and his own abdomen in wanton abandon. It is exquisite.

In his rapture Jehan has begun to speak in a tongue note his own. It may be Latin or Greek – it is Latin, for Combeferre hears _formosus_ and blushes profusely.

Still, “My darling,” he murmurs once Jehan has spent, but he does not release him from their embrace. “My sweet darling, you are beautiful.”

“We are beautiful,” is Jehan’s sole response.

They are many and they are two, but they are _one._

 

**Author's Note:**

> One day I might write a fic in which quotations have no place, but today is not that day.
> 
> Jehan refers to Keats' _Ode on a Grecian Urn_ ; Combeferre to Coleridge's _On the Principles of Genial Criticism_.


End file.
